Friday, December 02, 2011

I just learned a few moments ago that Martina Correia, the courageous sister of Troy Davis died today. As many of you know she was fighting breast cancer and had become very ill and weak in the last few months.

For all of you that were lucky enough to meet Martina, they met someone with incredible conviction and determination.

In one of my last conversations with Martina she told me someone in France had emailed her to say they were sorry that despite all of their efforts and protests for Troy, they had failed. Martina said, “I want people to know that we didn’t fail. As long as we keep hammering away at this thing, as long as we refuse to give up, we haven’t failed. We’ll be doing what Troy would have wanted us to do. Our efforts made an impact and we’ll continue to make an impact.”

That is always how she was. She refused to be defeated. She always looked to the positive, she always looked to ways we could mobilize to win.

I feel so proud and honored to have fought alongside Martina and Troy’s family.
And I know many, many of you feel the same way.

This news came to me in a phone call from Mark Clements, someone who spent 28 years wrongfully incarcerated in IL, he said, “We will miss her, she was a warrior in this fight. To the best of our ability we must continue this fight she started for Troy and for others.”

Her life was consumed by the fight to win justice for her brother and to raise the banner for abolition of the death penalty.
She was an inspiration to us all.

Now it will be up to us all to fight on in her memory and in Troys memory -- and to not give up.

As we learn more details on services and arrangements, we will post them on the list serve and on our website.

She stood by her brother, who maintained his innocence in the death of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. MacPhail was moonlighting on a security detail when he was shot three times.

"She was the No. 1 messenger and was the one that really inspired people to get involved and work for him," Laura Moye, who heads Amnesty International's campaign to abolish the death penalty, told the Associated Press. "She is the person who really sparked the global campaign for Troy Davis."

Media witnesses reported that Davis, 42, addressed the MacPhail family from the gurney before his Sept. 21 execution and again proclaimed his innocence. He also asked his friends and supporters to keep searching for the truth.

After the execution, his sister told the AP, "We're going to keep moving forward. That's what my brother would have wanted us to do, not be angry and wallow and those kinds of things."